Olympians live longer than the general population, regardless of their sport or medal-winning tally, it was claimed today.
Two studies on Olympic athletes head a list of quirky medical reports in the annual Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal.
Tooth fairies and space travellers also feature in the journal.
In the first study, researcher Philip Clarke, from Melbourne University, Australia, compared life expectancy among 15,174 Olympic athletes who won medals between 1896 and 2010 with general population groups matched by country, sex, and age.
All medallists lived an average of 2.8 years longer in eight out of the nine country groups studied.
Gold, silver and bronze medallists enjoyed roughly the same survival advantage, as did medallists in both endurance and mixed sports. Medallists in power sports had a smaller, but still significant, advantage over the general population.
The second study by Frouke Engelaer, of the Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing, Leiden, Netherlands, measured the effect of high intensity exercise on mortality later in life among former Olympic athletes.
Researchers followed 9,889 Olympic athletes with a known age at death, who took part in at least one Olympic Games between 1896 and 1936.
After adjusting for sex, year of birth and nationality, they found that athletes from high intensity sports, such as cycling and rowing, or moderate intensity, including gymnastics and tennis, had similar mortality rates compared with athletes from low cardiovascular intensity sports, such as golf or cricket.
The Christmas edition also publishes a study from Belgium that shows how dogs can help patients with severe sleep problems after a 35-year-old patient with excessive daytime sleepiness was helped by a specially-trained dog.
The animal was trained to wake the patient in the morning at the sound of an alarm clock, even if this sometimes required 30 minutes of gentle biting, and learned to wake her up when her mobile phone range. He then learned to wake her up, if necessary, at every metro, tram, or bus station.
Meanwhile, researchers in London have warned about “mounting reports of less child-friendly activity” among tooth fairies. It comes after a youngster became extremely distressed because the tooth fairy “had put a tooth in his left ear” when he left it under his pillow. In another case, teeth were found in the oesophagus, while a man developed an abscess after placing his child’s tooth in his nipple piercing so it could be “near to his heart”.
“As far as we are aware there is no revalidation procedure for the tooth fairy and no clear guidance or standard operating procedures in place to ensure outcomes are avoided,” write the researchers.
Experts in North America have also come forward to advise doctors on how to clear patients for space travel.
The Aerospace Medical Association Commercial Spaceflight Working Group, which published a document in 2009 stating that most individuals with “well controlled medical conditions” could withstand the acceleration forces from a launch of a commercial spaceflight, say it is important that patients recognise that space flight could carry risks for those with pre-existing medical conditions.
Clinicians should “consider developing a resource file for future reference”, says the group.
Finally, a French study, published in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal, says that people whose minds wander while driving are significantly more likely to be responsible for a crash.
Researchers interviewed 955 drivers injured in a motor vehicle crash who attended the emergency department at Bordeaux University Hospital between April 2010 and August 2011. All participants were 18 years or older.
Of those, 453 (47 per cent) of drivers were responsible for the crash, while 502 (53 per cent) were not.
Fifty-two per cent reported some mind wandering just before the crash, and its content was highly disrupting / distracting (defined as intense mind wandering) in 13 per cent of cases.
BMJ December 14 2012
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